Fermi Explorer Seeks Backers for $15 Million Alpha Centauri Mission Launching in 2029
Updated
Updated · TechCrunch · Sep 1
Fermi Explorer Seeks Backers for $15 Million Alpha Centauri Mission Launching in 2029
3 articles · Updated · TechCrunch · Sep 1
Summary
$15 million is the target for Fermi Explorer, a newly unveiled non-profit seeking partners, donations and payload ideas for a 2029 launch toward Alpha Centauri.
The plan uses existing technology rather than breakthrough propulsion: a 1-kilogram craft with a 10-centimeter-square payload would launch on a rideshare and use low-power electric propulsion to escape the solar system.
That approach accepts an 80,000-year trip, with the spacecraft operating for about 12 years before coasting indefinitely in hopes a future civilization could intercept it.
The mission would become the first human-built object explicitly aimed at another star and the sixth spacecraft to leave the solar system if it succeeds.
Its founders say the project is meant to test the Fermi paradox after the laser-driven Breakthrough Starshot effort—founded in 2016 and collapsed in 2025—failed to fly.